CLASSIFIED | POLITICS | TERRORISM | OPINION | VIEWS

Our sleeping diplomatic service

Dharmasena Liyanage

As reported in the media, LTTE agents in France destroyed the flag pole and the national flag at the Sri Lankan Embassy in Paris and caused damage to the Embassy premises.

The attack on the Embassy was said to have taken place hours before Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama arrived in Paris at the start of an official visit to Europe. The minister was scheduled to meet the French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and other leaders in France and the European Commissioner for External Relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner and Belgian Government leaders in Brussels

The incident, quite obviously, is an indication of how active is the LTTE in France and other European countries.

Soon after we (as members of an expatriate community living outside France) came to know about this incident, attempted to contact the Sri Lankan Embassy in Paris to get more details about the incident and found that their website http://www.srilankaembassyfrance.com/ was not in operation for months and their last update was in June 2007. No wonder, if someone has destroyed the flag under such situation!

As we remember, immediately after Mahinda Rajapaksa came to power, a conference was held in Colombo for the diplomatic service personnel, specifically to explain the dynamic role that they have to play when countering the activities of the LTTE and its front organizations responsible for spreading misinformation and raising funds.

Unfortunately, it appears that although the Sri Lankan diplomatic services operating in some of the countries are active in this direction, some appear to be quite sluggish. Despite the efforts of the handful of patriotic Sri Lankan expatriate community living in those countries, fund raising and misinformation of the LTTE continues at an unprecedented level, while our diplomatic missions are apparently doing nothing.

As per the media reports on the France Embassy issue, Sri Lankan government has said to be reiterated its call for the French authorities to exercise greater vigilance in the face of the activities of the LTTE and its front organizations on the French soil.

In actual fact, the Sri Lankan government should reiterate its own diplomatic missions to exercise greater vigilance in the face of activities of the LTTE and its front organisations not only on the French soil, but on other notable countries as well.

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